Our Hookup with an Eskimo

Yuri bringing a guy home for me was not unprecedented.  In West Hollywood in the 1990s, Lane and I used to cruise separately.  He went to the Faultline, and I went to Mugi or Basgos.

We arranged to meet up at 11:00 pm.  If one of us struck out, the other would "share" his hookup.  If we both met someone, we played mix-and-match in the bedroom.

Since the Faultline was for older guys, bears and daddies, and Mugi specialized in Asian twinks, it made for some diverse evenings.

One night I struck out at Mugi, but when I got home, Lane was sitting on the couch with an Asian guy.  At least I thought he was Asian.  Short, bronze skin, round face, military hair cut, shirtless, wearing a leather vest and nipple rings.

"This is Arnie," Lane said. "He's up for sharing."

"Boomer.  Pleased to meet you."  I took my place on the couch next to him.

"My legal name is Joseph, but when I came out, I took the name Arnie, short for Arnauyq,  It means 'gay,' in my language, or really 'man who imitates woman.'"

"What language?"

"Inupiaq.  What you call Eskimo."

"Great," Lane complained.  "Boomer is a language nut. Now you're never going to get him off that couch and into the bedroom."

"No, no."  I reached over fondled Arnie's hard, smooth chest.  He smiled and moved my hand to his crotch.  "But...I thought there were only a few native speakers of Inupiaq outside of Greenland."

"Well, it's not my native language.  Even my grandparents don't speak it well.  But I took lessons at the Community Center.  I figured, it's part of my heritage, I should learn it."

"I love Inuit words.  They seem to go on forever."

"Yes, you can keep adding suffixes forever. Do you speak Inupiaq? is one word, Inupiaqtituuhuunguvin."

Lane started playing with his nipple rings.  "I went to Hebrew school," he announced.  "Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melekh ha'olam, asher kidshanu b'mitzvotav, l'hadlik ner shel Shabbat."

That was probably the first time anyone said the Sabbath prayer while playing with someone's nipple rings.

Arnie was very hot, very muscular, and when I groped him, I felt impressive beneath-the-belt gifts.    But I wanted to hear about Inupiaq.

So we did some minor groping and neck-nuzzling while Arnie told us about growing up in Kotzebue, Alaska, a small town of 3000 people north of Nome.  Much of his childhood sounded familiar: church, school, comic books, Star Wars toys, hanging out with friends at Little Louie's on 3rd.

He was on his high school wrestling team.

But there were also dog sled races, spearing fish from a kayak, hunting on the ice, the polar bears walking through downtown, and Inupiaq lessons at the Community Center.

Who wouldn't want to hear these stories instead of jumping into the bedroom right away, regardless of the size of the guy's package?

Lane, apparently.  "Shouldn't we be starting the sharing?" he asked.

"Sure, let's go," Arnie said.

"Oh, your butt will keep.  It's not even midnight yet.  Tell me about the Yupik."

So Arnie kept talking.  Eventually, tiring of kissing and fondling his chest, Lane unzipped him and started going down on him.

But Arnie had the most amazing capacity to keep on talking in the midst of erotic activity.

Defeated, Lane said "I'll be in the bedroom if anybody needs me," and vanished.

"Um...I think we're being summoned," Arnie said.  "We should get in there.  He's my hookup, after all."

"Lane likes to read for awhile before bed anyhow.  We have plenty of time."

Fortunately, Arnie liked to talk.

But eventually he got tired and lay his head back against the couch.  "Ok," he said, eyes closed.  "Now we have to get in that bedroom, before I get too tired to care about hooking up."

We walked into the bedroom, where Lane was lying naked in bed, reading Rendezvous with Rama.  "Have we met?" he said sarcastically.  "You look almost like some guys I used to know, a long time ago."

"Sorry.  We were just talking."  Arnie leaned over the bed, took the book out of his hand, and kissed him.

And kept on kissing him.

He spent the rest of the night exploring every inch of Lane's body and all but ignoring me.

I guess I deserved it.

But let's face it -- you meet hot guys every day in West Hollywood.  How often do you meet an Eskimo?

See also: Our date with the teenage beachboy; cruising in the Navajo Nation